Keidel: Meet The Jets

Receiver Braylon Edwards #17 and head coach Rex Ryan (L) of the New York Jets chat during warms up prior to playing the Miami Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium on September 26, 2010 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images)

Coach Rex Ryan, whose foot grows in his mouth with every speech, said he was tired of talking about Braylon Edwards.

There is a perverse beauty to the way the Jets handled Edwards, making it no secret that they planned to play him, that his DUI case hadn’t been properly adjudicated and hence he’s not officially a criminal. At least the Jets have the guts to admit that character is incidental. As long as you aren’t in an orange jumpsuit, you can suit-up

Ryan is very proud of his team’s logo, pointing proudly to the emblem before shouting, “Play like a Jet! Win like a Jet! Drink like a Jet!”

Yes, I made up the last part.

Edwards is keeping the helm warm for another smooth criminal, Santonio Holmes, who returns from suspension in two weeks. A caller recently asked Mike Francesa what kind of message the Jets are sending to Holmes by being so casual over Edwards’s arrest. Mike said it was an excellent question. It was, and I have the answer.

The Jets don’t care. And I applaud them for being so brazen about it. The NFL has become a de facto halfway house, and everyone from the janitor to the GM knows it. If Michael Vick plays, why shouldn’t everyone else? Sure, you and I would have been fired at the first flash of impropriety, but our limbs aren’t insured by Lloyds of London.

If you are a useful player, your team will dart through any loophole to get you from perp walk to the catwalk. Atonement comes on the field, not in the court. The Jets pointed to the rest of the league’s apathy toward such conduct as a way to justify their own. Don’t waste your breath. We get it. Besides, you benched him for an entire quarter! Makes a chain gang look like a Club Med.

Edwards was forgiven the moment he dashed to a 67-yard touchdown Sunday night. Unburdened of his formerly titanic beard and blessed with a small conscience, Edwards had the gall to dance after his score – all the evidence you need that misdeeds are relative when good deeds are measured by a scoreboard.

Had the Jets lost to the Dolphins, a conga line of purists would have pointed to the karmic justice that comes with pardoning drunken drivers. (How’s that going?) Suffice it to say that the Deity has items on the docket more important than the AFC East. In the NFL, drinking and driving is deplorable on Saturday, but a “family matter” and “organizational decision” on Sunday.

Ryan, for all his gaseous assertions, is not dumb. He knows that winning is the elixir, the mute button for critics and cynics. He won’t have to talk about Edwards anymore because no one will ask. It’s the etiquette of victory.

You must be a Giant Fan. What’s the number? Like 22 DWI arrests in the NFL since Rex Ryan has been head coach & no one was suspended. So why should the Jets set a precedence. Besides the NFL in in bed with all the beer companies anyway.

The real discussion should be about how lenient we are as a country when it comes to drunk driving. Many other countries have a minimum of jail time and loss of license for a year. But, I guess 40,000 deaths a year isn’t really a concern to most Americans.

What is the obsession with making the Jets “discipline” Edwards? If he is as guilty as everyone assumes he will be punished in a court of law and will probably lose millions of dollars when looking for his next contract. Benching him would have proven nothing and accomplished nothing.

Haha I am not a Jets fan but I have to agree with the post. Jets fan is 100% correct, about letting anyone write a column and what Jets fan went on to say. And I have to add more. People need too get over Michael Vick. i am a big dog lover , but people please, there are human being being killed by other human being, and by some even in this league. Vick made a serious error in lifestyle and in thinking and he paid for it. But no HUMAN lost their life. Donte Stallworth killed a HUMAN BEING and is currently on the filed. In way less time time that it took Vick to come back. I could go alot deeper but I think thats already an obvious fact. Meaning–I don’t see any uproar over Favre’s hunting. And I seriously doubt Favre needs to hunt for food.Any ways, I digress. The Jets are doing what they can to handle a bad situation. In the meantime professional athletes just need to wise up or the organization that they play for needs incorporate a true human resources department that is extremely ‘hands on’ so the less intelligent athletes don’t do something to less intelligent to hinder the organization.